Great Balls of Fire
by offsides
Summary: Confronting a Voldemort-possessed Quirrel at the Mirror of Erised, Harry takes a chance calling on a song he's never dared to let his Magic embrace. A different take on how Harry's hands and Quirrel's body got burned at the end of book 1. A tale in the "The Magic's In the Music" series. NOTE: Read Thunderstruck first for the series background.


**Great Balls of Fire**

**A/N:** Happy belated New Year! (I meant to post this over winder break, and then got busy and forgot. But it's a snow day, so I have a little extra time.) This is another tidbit from the same overall fic as _Thunderstruck_, which I've decided I will only be writing individual scenes for rather than the whole fic. I've named the series, "The Magic's In the Music," and while I may expand on some early (pre-Hogwarts) bits, the overall story is going to be mostly the same as the books. So there's no point in writing the whole thing, just adding how Harry occasionally finds a song that helps him out. This one's a good bit shorter than the first, but has a similar feel. It takes place during the final confrontation with Quirrelmort at the end of Book 1, when Harry was alone and thus nobody but Voldemort's shade to see it. Yes, this means that _Thunderstruck_ wasn't the first time Voldemort experienced Harry's musical abilities, but at the time he had no clue what it meant, and didn't realize Harry was actively doing something until it happened again in the graveyard.

**A/N #2:** The italics are take verbatim from _Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone_, p. 294 (Scholastic Edition).

"_Don't be a fool," snarled the face. "Better save your own life and join me … or you'll meet the same_

_end as your parents. … They died begging me for mercy. …"_

"_LIAR!" Harry shouted suddenly._

_Quirrell was walking backward at him, so that Voldemort could still see him. The evil face was now smiling._

Harry knew he had to do something to stop Voldemort, and suddenly a song popped into his head. He'd played with it before, but never really pushed it for fear of burning down the neighborhood. But here and now? He started singing to himself.

/* Jerry Lee Lewis "Great Balls of Fire" (1957) */

He had missed what Voldemort was saying while he was thinking, but started paying attention just in time to hear him say, _"Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain."_

/* 0:10 */

Rather than responding to Voldemort's statement, he shouted, "Goodness gracious great balls of fire!" As he did, two balls of fire the size of pool balls appeared in his hands and he threw them at Quirrel, missing with one but catching a sleeve with the other, causing it to instantly catch fire.

"Seize him!" screamed Voldemort, as Quirrell shrieked in a combination of fear and pain at the burning cloth on his arm. It took him a moment to use his wand to extinguish the flames, during which time Harry had started singing out loud while retreating from his opponent. As Quirrel turned around and started to advance on Harry, he paused as he saw that there were now two balls of fire the size of small grapefruit in the boy's hands.

/* 0:22 */

Harry was really getting into the song now, and could feel the fire getting bigger and hotter as he sang, so when the next chorus came around he took more careful aim and threw them at Quirrell's chest and legs. The possessed professor instinctively tried to shield himself with his wand arm, which resulted in both his arm and legs catching fire, though luckily for him (and unluckily for Harry) not his wand itself. He screamed again, as he found himself engulfed in flames considerably stronger than the first time.

Harry took advantage of Quirrell's distraction and moved again, this time getting behind the now burning man. Voldemort tried to tell his host where Harry was, but Quirrell kept moving his head as he did his best to put out the fires, only succeeding after thoroughly dousing himself with an _Aguamenti_. He then turned, and took a moment to spot Harry, who had done his best to hide behind the Mirror of Erised.

"You can't defeat me, boy," said Quirrell, his anger at having been burned combined with the screaming causing his voice to come out in a raspy growl. "Now give me the stone!"

/* 0:52 */

"I can't do that," said Harry, stepping around from behind the mirror. He lifted his hands holding balls of fire the size of cantaloupes. "How about these instead?" he asked, then threw them at Quirrell one right after the other. This time, instead of simply catching the professor's clothes on fire where they hit, they practically burst all over him causing his entire robe, his wand, and even some of his hair to ignite.

This time both Quirrell and Voldemort screamed, and the former dropped to the ground flailing about in an an attempt to put out the flames. To Harry, it was something like watching a train wreck – he was horrified by what he was seeing, yet he couldn't tear his eyes away from it. As the possessed man writhed on the ground, Harry realized that his own hands were hurting, and looking at them he saw that they were also burnt. He knew that there was one more round of the chorus coming up, and could feel that it would be the strongest one yet. He also knew that Voldemort had to be stopped, and what had to be done; the question was, would he be burnt to a crisp as well?

As the final verse ran through his brain, he felt and saw the biggest balls of fire yet forming in his hands, and he prepared to throw them as soon as he could. They were already the size of a Quaffle, and showed no sign of stopping. As the song reached its final climax, he had to bite his own tongue to stop from screaming at the burning in his hands, they were so hot.

/* 1:45 */

As the song peaked, he threw both fireballs onto the still smoldering body of Professor Quirrell, who was simply engulfed in flames as a wall of heat blew out from the point of impact. Harry, already hurting from the burns on his hands, was thrown back into the wall. Consciousness left him upon impact, which prevented him from seeing Voldemort's shade from abandoning its host body as it was quickly turned to ash.

Voldemort considered trying to possess the Potter boy's body, but before he could do so he heard the Headmaster outside the wall of fire. Cursing Dumbledore, Potter and especially Quirrell, he quickly fled the castle and its environs. He would have to find another way to get his body back.

**A/N #3:** That's it for this time. There's at least one more story in the works, but since it's all still mostly in my head there's no telling when I'll get it posted... :)


End file.
